AUSTIN - Central Texas builders started construction on nearly 9,400 homes last year — the highest level in six years, Metrostudy’s latest figures show.

The 9,379 starts marked a 17.5 percent increase from 2012, when builders started 7,981 houses.

The 2013 starts were the most starts for a calendar year since 2007, when builders started work on more than 12,400 houses. Metrostudy recorded 2,128 new home starts in the final quarter 2013, a 2.2 percent increase from an unseasonably strong fourth quarter in 2012.

Madison Inselmann, regional director of the Austin office of Metrostudy, predicts builders will start, at a minimum, between 10,000 to 10,500 houses in 2014.